


I Could Wake Up Screaming Sometimes (But I Don't)

by Friedcheesemogu



Category: Mission: Impossible (Movies)
Genre: Character Study, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Or Is It?, free form, when internal monologues go dangerously rogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:47:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26976100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Friedcheesemogu/pseuds/Friedcheesemogu
Summary: Will is fucking broken for him. He has been for years.
Relationships: William Brandt/Ethan Hunt
Comments: 5
Kudos: 33





	I Could Wake Up Screaming Sometimes (But I Don't)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, I'm showing up 5-9 years late to this fandom without Starbucks but my housemate brought the M:I blu-ray set into our home and it's been downhill in a burning hellbound handbasket since. 
> 
> I admit this has ended up being probably less coherent than I'd hoped and maybe a little darker that I intended, but I've lost control of my life and decided to accept the mission of "getting this out of my head" even though the consequences. It's unbeta'd & tossed here like days of old on LJ so everything is my fault.
> 
> The title is from Ani DiFranco's "Tiptoe," but the actual theme music/inspiration/thing I listened to on loop while writing it is ["Wild" by Poe](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWYBdzduIiY) and I can't recommend it enough.

Ethan, Ethan. Beautiful Ethan. 

The platinum of golden boys, the superstar of super spies, the most well known if constantly disavowed, discredited, discouraged member of the IMF who has been through no less than three secretaries, two profound betrayals and one failed marriage but always lands on his feet even if he breaks his ankle then somehow doesn’t notice for a few hours. 

Ethan Hunt: shot, stabbed, thrown against walls, windows, cars, trains, punched within an inch of his life and then shocked back from death by pure fortitude and chance. He flies, he falls, he drowns, he gets back up. The human body shouldn’t be able to take the years of abuse Ethan has put his through, but he’s still standing, steady, stronger than ever, devastating to look at, beautiful, beautiful Ethan.

He’s a living nightmare. He’s a hundred sleepless nights when it shouldn’t even matter because it’s not like he calls unless he needs something, this man who has never needed anything he couldn’t somehow find himself given enough time and patience or the slightest of slight chances. He’s a footnote in every file, impossible to ignore even when there’s no sign of his name or shadow.

Will is fucking broken for him. He has been for years. It’s Ethan’s fault too, because he tried to be a normal man with a normal wife and he went out on a normal jog, luring Will to follow him down a path that led violently to the rest of Will’s life every day since then. Ethan Hunt, more like Ethan _Haunt_ (funny, right?) where’s the protocol for this ghost, this monster who doesn’t live under Will’s bed or in his closet but out in the open, in the field, always running too fast to be caught then looping back around to grab him from behind

In London, he sat in the van and watched Ethan hug Ilsa —Ilsa, who had earlier asked Ethan to run away with her as if it was a private conversation, as if three people weren’t listening in and one of them suddenly felt like he might throw up— and then Benji said something like “what’s that sound?” and Will looked down to realize he was gripping the dashboard with the same hand that grabbed Ethan’s leg and held him over the edge of the world. His palm had never forgotten the searing of shifting tendons and bones against his skin, he could still feel it even as he smiled wanly and made some half-assed attempt at a joke about tension and let go of the car but not the jealousy. But Ilsa had to let go too. Nothing and no one holds Ethan for long.

(Well, one person did. And now she’s the living dead, a cautionary tale, the reminder that the line between horror and romance is the width of a whisper.)

Ethan didn’t ask him to come on the next mission. He would have said no, anyway; his hand wouldn’t stop hurting.

-

Ethan, Ethan, awful fucking Ethan, learning to fly a helicopter on a moment’s notice just because he wants to, falling off a cliff just because he needs to. He’s everywhere all the time but he lives in Will’s head rent-free, leaseless, has never needed a key because he can just go in a window, he’ll find a way. 

Hunley called him the “manifestation of destiny” and Will thought that was dramatic and pretty but not entirely true, because if Ethan is the manifestation of anything, he’s the devil’s own luck and every kiss that might be the very last. 

“What if this is it?” Will doesn’t ask every time they say goodbye, just in case it makes Ethan not want to say hello again, in case Will reveals that he’s a liability every time Ethan asks him into the field to watch him do the terrible, gorgeous things Ethan does that make Will feels like a wild animal continually put into a smaller and smaller cage. That whole having “loved and lost” being better than “never having loved at all” bullshit is bullshit, Will knows it is, because 1) he’s seen the scars love left on Ethan’s body that he wants to trace with his tongue, and 2) he’s seen what it’s done to his own life, knows that the impact crater and blast radius of losing Ethan for good, for real, forever would be miles wide and years long. Even if he’s never really had him enough to truly lose him. 

Sometimes Will lies awake at night knowing nothing would be better, pretending they’d never met, wishing that he’d walked out of Croatia with a “you win, you lose, better luck tomorrow” attitude instead of the awareness that Ethan exists in the world in a way no one should, the most earnest and sincere killer of dozens who would rather throw himself on a slow motion explosion than let himself be held safe and dear. That’s the worst part, maybe, of beautiful, horrible Ethan: to know him is to love him, to love him is to get out of the way, to duck and cover, flip a coin, say a little prayer or a little curse and light the fuse. 

Today he’s alive and leaning in the door of Will’s office, smiling. Smiling because somehow Ethan, Ethan, clever, brilliant Ethan doesn’t know that Will wants to bite his shoulders raw, leave teeth marks of feral claim. Doesn’t know Will wants to press his fingers into Ethan until he can hold onto his broken ribs with his bare hands, kiss him until his mouth is destroyed and useless for anything other than gasping Will’s name, the damage permanent, enough to last through death and out the other side. Will wants to ruin him the way he’s ruined Will, leave him hungry and embarrassed enough to carve out his own heart and eat it too since he devoured Will’s a long time ago. 

Ethan, Ethan.

“You’re thinking too hard,” he says. “And you’re still wasted behind a desk.”

“Are you here to offer me something better?” Will dares a slight smile.

Beautiful Ethan.

“Or worse, I guess it depends on how you look at it.”

“With you, it’s usually worse.”

“Does that mean you’re saying ‘no’ this time?” 

For a moment, even a natural disaster holds its breath.

Will stands up, walks around the desk, takes Ethan’s good wrist in the hand he once shattered, pulling him gently into the office.

“No.”

Will closes the door behind them.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. <3
> 
> [@friedcheesemogu](http://www.twitter.com/friedcheesemogu)


End file.
